Red panda diplomacy offers glimmer of hope even as China-Taiwan tensions soar

Taipei agrees to send African penguins to Shanghai in exchange for red pandas in bid to establish cooperative relationship between two cities

Taipei is sending African penguins to Shanghai in exchange for red pandas in a bid to establish a cooperative relationship between the two cities through animal exchange.

The capital city of Taiwan on Tuesday signed an agreement to exchange the animals during a rare visit by a Chinese delegation led by Shanghai's deputy mayor to the contested island for an annual city-to-city forum.

The Taipei Zoo said that the agreement is focused on animal exchange, professional development and collaborative research on wildlife conservation management and cooperation in breeding.

The zoo is home to 11 red pandas, including three breeding pairs, and used artificial incubation to welcome seven new African penguins this year.

The animal exchange programme comes amid heightened tensions between China and the self-governed island, which Beijing claims to be its territory.

China deployed its largest naval fleet in nearly three decades in the waters around Taiwan that simulated a blockade with one string of ships off the island and a second farther out at sea. China hasn’t ruled out the use of force to bring the island under its sovereignty.

Taipei's mayor, Chiang Wan-an, told the visiting Chinese delegation that he hoped for peace and wanted less of the "howls of ships and aircraft" around the island.

"More dialogue and less confrontation; more olive branches of peace and less sour grapes of conflict. More lights from fishing boats to adorn the sunset; less of the howls of ships and aircraft," Mr Chiang, a member of Taiwan’s pro-China opposition party Kuomintang, said.

"I always say that the more tense and difficult the moment, the more we need to communicate.”

Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council in Beijing, said representatives of the two cities reached positive consensus that led to the signing of two memoranda of understanding on exchanges and cooperation.

"Compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Straits are Chinese and one family and should have frequent exchanges and cooperation," Ms Zhu said, according to Chinese state media Global Times.

"We will work with our compatriots in the Taiwan region to adhere to the One China principle and the 1992 Consensus" and to oppose "Taiwan independence", she added.

Ms Zhu claimed that some members of the Shanghai delegations and journalists were "deliberately obstructed" by Taiwanese president Lai Ching-te's Democratic Progress Party, which made it "impossible for them to make the trip".

She said the ruling party's actions were "unreasonable and unpopular".

The forum, first held in 2010, is one of the few high-level venues for talks between Chinese and Taiwanese officials after China cut off a regular dialogue mechanism with Taiwan's central government in 2016 following the election of Tsai Ing-wen as president.